Lego Racers

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It looks like the PC is finally going to get a racer with all the fun and playability of Mario Kart.

By IGN Staff

Over the last few years, there have been an amazing amount of hyper-realistic racing titles released for the PC. Even so, no one seemed interested in taking a shot at the less serious cart racing titles, like Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing that reached out to so many gamers on the consoles. Now Lego is bringing a title to the PC, Lego Racers, that will not only give gamers a chance to experience the sort of fantasy racing that console gamers have been experiencing for years, but will also give them the chance to construct their very own cars and racers to compete with. Although the game will hit shelves later this month, we just got our hands on a beta copy and couldn't wait to give you a quick look at what to expect.

At its core, Lego Racers is very, very similar to the console fantasy racers mentioned above. Each race you'll go up against a group of opponents all looking to get to the finish line first. During the course of your race, you'll be able to pick up power-ups that will give you special powers that can: a) attack other racers, b) defend you from other racer's attacks, c) make you go faster, or d) make life difficult for racers who are behind you. The first person to cross the finish line after a pre-determined number of laps (3 in single player mode) is the winner. Sound simple? It is, and that's the beauty of the whole thing.

Still, it's important to understand that while Lego Racers definitely borrows pretty heavily from the standard fantasy racing format it doesn't hesitate to break new ground in a lot of different ways. First off, and perhaps most noticeably, the game takes place in an entirely Lego-themed world. Each of the 12 different tracks takes place in a different world that Lego has built building block sets for. Better still, Each circuit has a sort of anti-hero who hosts the tracks and who will do their best to crush you during the race. The Imperial Grand Prix, hosted by Capatain Redbeard is a rush through a pirate town based on the pirate Lego set, the Desert Adventure Raceway, hosted by Johnny Thunder, is based on Lego's Egyptian tomb raider sets, and King Kahuka hosts the Tribal Island Trail, a winding track that's based on the island Lego sets. All of this is more than just clever backgrounds though, the different tile sets also play a major part in the game itself. When you beat a particular racer on an entire circuit you get access to his title set when you go to the car building screen.

Car building screen? Yep, Lego lets you grab a hold of those familiar Lego pieces and slap together pieces on a frame to try and build the ultimate racing machine. The more circuits you win, the more Lego sets you'll get access including parrots from the Pirate World, spears and bones from the Island World, flared space pieces from the space world and so on. While the construction screen seems a bit limited at first, we eventually found that, with a little creativity, you can build some pretty cool vehicles. Best of all, the changes that you make actually make a difference in how the car performs on the track. The basic formula is, if your car has a whole bunch of pieces, it'll have a higher top speed but will suffer from acceleration problems. Basic frames will be zippy off the line, but won't be able to keep up in a flat-out run. Those of you looking for even more flexibility will be impressed by the game's character design screen which lets you build your own racer from different head and body pieces of the Lego universe.

Once you hit the track, you'll spot another difference between Lego Racers and those console titles. While most of the fantasy racing games that have come before have featured power-ups (it's part of what makes them so fun) there aren't many of them to choose from, and picking them up is usually just a matter of luck. With Lego Racers you can actually build the power-up that you want. As you drive around the track, you'll see small blocks all over the place that you can run over to collect. Each of the basic color blocks tunes your power-up screen to one of four different power-up categories. Picking up a red block will set your for forward offensive weapons, picking up a blue block changes you over to defensive abilities, yellow blocks move you to passive offensive tools and green blocks activate your speed boost options. From here you can either use the power-up immediately at its lowest power, or you can try and collect white blocks which increase the power of which ever power-up category you have active. The red attacks we've seen so far include the basic cannon ball attack, which fires from the front of your car and heads in a straight line towards the racer you are facing, blowing them up on impact, the lightning bolt, a fierce arc of electricity that zaps any car who gets close in front of you, and the multi-rocket blast which fires off three missiles to harass your enemies. All of the blue powers are shields, each of which has a different strength and duration, and one of which will actually do damage to other cars who run into you. The yellow powers all drop off the back of your car and screw up those who are trailing you. We've seen an oil slick (the basic power), and a mummy curse that reverses the controls of any racer who runs into it. Green power ups we were lucky enough to spot were a rocket boost which increased the speed of your car to break-neck speed for a short period of time, and a hyperwarp that causes you to disappear and then reappear a good distance further up the track.

Although they still aren't finished with the game, Lego Racers is already looking pretty darn good. The only big disappointment that we've had so far is the fact that, while there is support for head-to-head play through split screen, there is absolutely no network support at all, inexcusable in today's Internet capable gaming world. Keep an eye on the future pages of IGNPC for reviews and comparison between this game and the other big fantasy racer of the season, ReVolt, as soon as we get our hands on final copies of both games.

LEGO Drome Racers is a multi-terrain racing experience in which players take on the role of Max Axel, who has trained intensely for the challenging Drome Championship and wants to take home the trophy. Getting behind the wheel of high-tech cars based on the 2002 LEGO Racers construction toy range, players must face tough Multi-challenge Races. Each race is a seamless set of stages, mixing tracks with city, mountain and canyon environments. Drome Racers is a fast-paced "anything goes" game which features varied, realistic terrains, sleek LEGO Technic-style cars, and on-road, off-road or drag racing.